Burt Rutan is an American aerospace engineer and noted pioneer and maverick. He was the head designer of SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two-week period and which earned him won the coveted $10,000,000 Ansari X-Prize. He has designed hundreds of aircraft and spacecraft, including the famous Voyager, which his brother piloted on a record-breaking nine-day nonstop flight around the world. He is currently the Founder and Chairman of Scaled Composites, hoping to spur progress in the development of space tourism.

SS1 the first private manned space vehicle, which flew past the boundary of space (100,000 metres, or 328,000 feet) over the United States in 2004 in competition for the Ansari X Prize. Inspired by the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh for his solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, which was sponsored by American hotel owner Raymond Orteig, the $10 million Ansari X Prize was sponsored by Iranian-born American entrepreneurs Anousheh and Amir Ansari and was offered to the first private enterprise that successfully completed two piloted flights with the equivalent weight of two passengers to the boundary of space in a two-week period. Having won the prize, SS1 now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution ’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., a monument to the future of space tourism. With financing from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, SS1 was designed and developed by Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., an aerospace development company founded by American aircraft...